About the author...

• In addition to writing eBook Farming, I'm the author of Web Site Design Made Easy, published by Morton Publishing of Englewood, Colorado. It's being used in colleges from coast to coast in the United States as the web site design teaching text.

• I landed that book deal largely based on three things. The web design tutorials on my Boogie Jack's Web Depot site, my writing style, and because "Boogie Jack" had become a well known commodity. At the time I made the book deal, my site served between 500,000 and 800,000 page views per month, and I had nearly 100,000 ezine subscribers. Oh yeah, the publisher called me and asked me to write the book. When you publish content, whether ezines or eBooks, you're often seen as an expert on your topic. Just one of the intangibles that go along with the territory when you write.

  Note that when I said on the front page that I make my living from the Internet, I was earning my living earning exclusively from the Internet long before I received any book royalties. I have other income streams now as well, but I still earn a significant portion of my income from eBooks. I also have more eBooks in the planning stages. eBooks are a fantastic income stream that I intend to keep creating.

• I developed Boogie Jack's to where it is in the top 1% of the most-linked-to sites on the Internet according to websmostlinked.com.

• My primary ezine, Almost a Newsletter, was named the Best Ezine of 2000 by independent ezine reviewers at ibiznewsletters.com, and named one of the Top 3 Ezines on the Internet by Writers Digests Magazine.

Now, I didn't tell you all that to brag, but to demonstrate that I do know a little bit about conducting business on the Internet. It's important for you to know that I do have a pretty good idea of what it takes to succeed on the Internet so you can determine if I'm just another self-appointed expert, or if I really do have value to offer you with eBook Farming.

You see, many of the experts selling marketing information have their expertise based in the offline world. While that's nice, it's not necessarily what you need to know to succeed online. If that's all it took, there wouldn't be so many dotcom failures, now would there? My experience is all online, and while there is marketing advice in the eBook, more importantly, I teach you how to create your own products. What good is marketing knowledge if you don't have something of your own to sell?

My background...

There's little in my background to qualify me for all the success I've found online. That's only good news for you. It means you need no special qualifications to succeed; just the desire, a good work ethic, and good character. I was an average student in high school, graduating 75th out of a class of 175. I didn't go to college. I served a hitch in the US Navy. I worked as a security officer after the Navy, then I supervised a Romano bean plant for a year, then I worked in a paper mill. I was a fairly normal, working class kinda guy by most people's standards. I believe that nicely demonstrates that you need no special training to find success creating your own eBooks.

In 1996 I bought my first computer. A year later I built a web site. The rest is history, as they say. I kept learning what I needed to know, made up for a lack of knowledge at times by making reasoned guesses, found out what works and what doesn't, and now here I am doing nothing but net for my living and making more money than I ever have in my life. Because of my Internet earnings, I couldn't afford to keep working a $16.45 an hour job at the paper mill - it was a pay cut to work at the mill!

When I sell a product, I'm not just selling one product. I'm putting my reputaton, and indeed, my entire living on the line with every product I sell. That's why I only put out high quality products. I've got everything to lose by selling junk.

My reasons for writing eBook Farming...

The obvious reason is to make money, and that is one of the reasons I wrote it. But I could have made a lot of different products. I have a long list of projects, and many are older than this eBook idea. But I really do like to help people better their lives, and one day when sorting through email that had more than the usual amount of spam, it dawned on me that the average person looking for a way to make extra money could lose a LOT of money trying the various so-called business opportunities.

Let me back up for a second and say that I'm in a unique position. Because of my Boogie Jack site and Almost a Newsletter, I get a lot of offers from entrepreneurs to engage in joint ventures. They're looking for free editorial style advertising (my endorsement of their product), and offer me a percentage of sales for it. I always reply that I won't endorse a product I'm not familiar with, which usually means they offer their product to me for free. I gotta tell ya folks, a lot of the stuff that comes my way is garbage that I would never endorse.

I remember one person offered me 50% of the sales for a "publishers toolkit" that sold for $99.00. The product was a CD-rom with thousands of reports you can resell and be an instant publisher. The reports had catchy names like:

• How to Write Your Own Loans for 0% Interest Whenever You Want
• How to Vacation in Luxury Homes in Europe for Free
• 100 Ways to Make Extra Money Today

I looked at hundreds of these reports. Most were 1 or 2 paragraphs. The one on how to write your own 0% loans explained to open two or more checking accounts, and write checks from one to cover rubber checks on the other, and keep doing that as long as you want with no money in any accounts, just stay ahead of the check clearing. That's called check kiting, and is illegal.

The report on vacationing in luxury homes for free was one paragraph saying to trade homes for two weeks with someone in Europe. Real helpful, huh? 100 ways to make extra money had things like paint rocks and sell them as paperweights, sing in a nightclub, and roll up newspapers and paint them brown and sell them as firewood. Yeah, that will do it.

The ad for that product made it sound pretty darn good, but clearly the best work associated with the CD was the advertising lure. So when it dawned on me that the average person looking for money making opportunities was probably being ripped off time and time again, I decided to try to give people a real way to make money.

Because information has long been one of the best ways to create wealth, because I make most of my money selling information (or selling ads in free information I provide), because most anyone can write adequately and it doesn't require a major investment so the opportunity is available to everyone, and because eBooks are the perfect product from many standpoints, eBook Farming was my answer.

I guess that's about it. I like to make money, but I like to make my money by helping people. As Zig Ziglar once wrote: you can get anything you want in life if you just help enough others to get what they want. For me, that's a reward equal to the money.